Burpees: The exercise you should never do again.

Few exercises strike more fear into the hearts of boot-camp attendees more than burpees.

Trainer Jamie Atlas thinks that instead of burpees, boot camp attendees should do something that will cause less wear-and-tear on their bodies, like maybe bull-riding. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

To the satisfaction of trainers across the world, simply mentioning the exercise is guaranteed to elicit a series of groans and complaints across a class.

But is the burpee the great all-around conditioning exercise it claims to be?

Upon closer examination, I am ready to say that this is probably the one exercise I will never ever have anyone do ever again.

For the uninitiated, a burpee is essentially a squat that moves quickly to plank position and back all in one (smooth?) movement. Like this:

Step 1: From a standing position, drop down vertically and place both hands on the ground on either side of the foot
Step 2: In one clean motion, take both feet back, so you are now in a pushup position.
Step 3: In one clean motion, bring the feet back to between the hands
Step 4: From the bottom position, rise up tall and return to a standing position Feel a simultaneous popping sensation in knees and low back mixed with hatred of self.
Repeat Step 1.

So why is the burpee so popular? A simple Google search will bring forth a wellspring of tales of the burpee, lamenting its cardiovascular challenge, its brutality, and the love-hate relationship it fosters amongst its devotees. To know why — despite its widespread use — I’ll never give this exercise to any client I have, we need to look back at the target population and the true benefit of this exercise.

Why does the burpee even exist, and whose blackened soul do I have to blame for it?

Created by Royal H. Burpee in the 1930s as a way to test the agility, strength and coordination of prospective soldiers, this exercise quickly gained in popularity throughout boot camps everywhere (we’re talking real tonight-we-dine-in-hell boot camps, not your spandex-wearing-tire-flipping-lets-get-a-latte-after-this boot camps you see littered amongst your city parks).

Eight burpees completed in 20 seconds was considered poor, 13 or more in 20 seconds was considered excellent. That was it. One set. Twenty seconds. Remember that the next time you hear someone talk about how many burpees they did before they lost their protein shake on the gym floor.

So why a burpee for the military? I’m going to make a concession to my “never ever” status on this exercise and say that notwithstanding the risks (which I will explain soon), the burpee is probably the very best exercise for the military. Or should I say more specifically, for people being shot at by other people with guns. It stands to reason that if a soldier can’t quickly get down to the ground and then quickly get back up again, they’re simply fodder for target practice. A primary need is to be able to drop into a firing position and then bounce back up lightning-fast to move to a safe position — and without a certain standard of ability to complete that particular movement, they are at a significantly higher risk of getting shot than their other, more agile companions.

The military owes it to that soldier to hold them back from the battlefield if they can’t quickly drop to the ground, safe out of the way of those annoying bullets. But if you are not in the military, there are two simple reasons you should not do burpees:

Your knees and your low back.

You’ll miss them when they’re gone, and they’re hard (if not impossible) to get back once you’ve seriously damaged them. They are quite simply the two most commonly injured parts of your body (especially if you’re a well-developed desk jockey, hunched over your portable tablet on a 12-14-hour-a-day basis). When done in a typical boot camp setting, burpees are not used as a test — they’re used as a daily staple, seen in the same light as brushing your teeth or flirting with the new receptionist.

I can hear the hordes of trainers brandishing their pitchforks now: “How can it be a REAL workout without burpees?”

I might ask, how can it be a workout if it puts your body at high risk of injury WITH burpees?

It’s the dynamic nature of the burpee that demands quick and powerful bending of the knee and low back done repeatedly (certainly more than eight to thirteen times) that with each repetition moves further away from benefit and closer to imminent injury.

So what to do instead? Safer, more sane variations of this exercise include:

* Stepping, rather than flinging, the feet back to reduce the dynamic load on the back and knees
* Starting with hands on a deck or platform to reduce the range of motion required
* Complimenting your trainer on his or her new gear before announcing to them that you’re “just going to do squats instead” (it’s your workout after all, right?)

In short, the burpee is an exercise created and designed to be done as a test for a short number of repetitions to predict a soldier’s ability to prevent lead poisoning. The exercise may have great benefits for the already accomplished athlete who needs to drop to the ground quickly and/or return quickly (as in perhaps rugby or American football), but serves little purpose and actually a significantly higher risk to the cubicle dwellers and stay-at-home mothers of the world who just want to feel better and look good in the mirror.

As a fitness professional, I have a responsibility to help my clients achieve their goals in both the fastest and safest way possible. IF you’re doing burpees as part of your workout, why stop there when there are other, equally nonsensical workouts to pursue? Maybe you’d like to try some other popular sports with a similar benefit/risk ratio, like bull-riding or bear wrestling.

Jamie Atlas owns a personal training studio in Denver and is a recognized fitness expert with over twenty years of training experience. He thinks bulls are poor methods of transportation in general, and at the age of ten wrestled a Labrador retriever as it was eating his homework. At least, that’s what he told his 5th grade teacher.

A complete lack of medical or other evidence. Burpees are completely safe when done correctly; like any other movement, done wrong, they can do harm. Fitness pros who make absolutist claims like this are the kind of fitness pro I’d recommend people absolutely ignore.

Jesse Gilge

One of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. Sweeping generality judgments without base and with only ridiculous comparisons like “bear wrestling” and “bull riding” costs this person all credibility. “recognized fitness expert”, recognized by who? This is an embarrassing article to the fitness community, I would recommend going to this guy if your overall goals are to throw your money away and get nothing in return.

Alfred Guy

“Step 1: From a standing position, drop down vertically and place both hands on the ground on either side of the foot” If you did them with the hands outside the feet, I’m not surprised you had issues. That would mean your stance is relatively narrow and your back is probably rounded.

If you lower yourself with your head and chest high, and your hands paced inside of your feet, putting you in a slightly wider stance, (a frog position) the back and knees tend to be fine. Of course, this is anecdotal, but a couple of years ago, I did a fundraiser for my TKD school. 10,000 burpees in 31 days, with no ill effects. I do them all the time, but I do them safely. I also keep a focus on my core muscles throughout the movement, so they support me.

This article would be useful for those who want an excuse not to do burpees, and that’s fine, I guess. Thanks.

Hawksfan78

Sounds like someone couldn’t keep up and is doing their darnedest to rationalize…

Sharon

They are bad for your lower back IF you don’t have the ab strength. I have a disc bugle in my lower back and burpees don’t effect if in anyway because I have very good ab strength. I developed my ab strength in order to help my lower back issues and I advice other people with like issues to do the same.

TJ Milani

The writer of this article tells us not to do burpees, but then gives us NO other alternative to replace them. Sounds like this guy doesn’t know what he is talking about at all.

Travel and Fitness Editor Kyle Wagner grew up in Pittsburgh and lived in Lake County, Ill., and Naples, Fla., before moving to Denver in 1993, where she reviewed restaurants for Westword before moving to The Denver Post in 2002. She considers the best days to be those that involve her teenage daughters and doing something outside, preferably mountain biking or whitewater rafting.

The pursuit of a healthier state through better living. The Denver Post's ColoradoFit blog features local experts on the latest fitness trends, active lifestyles and nutrition options in Colorado and beyond.